Martha was waiting for the elevator. She turned around and gazed at us without saying a word. She is considerably like Robbie Belle in her exasperating power of silence, but neither of them does it on purpose.
Unfortunately just then a senior behind her turned around too and said, “Nobody catches anybody here. This is a college, not a boarding school.”
Now such a remark as that was distinctly unkind, not so much because either Lila or I had ever been to a boarding school, for we hadn’t, as because we wished we had. We had devoured all the stories about them and envied the girls in them. We had hoped that we would find some of the same kind of fun at college itself.
Lila blushed, and I could not think of any repartee that would be appropriate, especially as Martha was staring so hard at the glass of sugar. I had noticed all the fall that she was an odd child about candy. She never would touch a mouthful of any that we made—and we made it pretty often—maybe four times a week. She always just shook her head and said she’d rather not.
It was a relief to hear the elevator come rattling up from the first floor. The dining-room is on the second, you see, though I don’t know that this fact has any bearing on the story; still it may supply local color or realism or something like that. Well, we entered the elevator, and there stood a junior in the corner. This junior chanced to be an editor of the college magazine which had offered a ten dollar prize for the best short story handed in before October twentieth. She glanced at us and then stared hard at Martha till we had passed the third floor, and at the fourth she walked out behind us and spoke to Martha. She said, “Miss Reed, I think I am not premature in congratulating you upon the story which you submitted in the contest. You will receive official notice of your victory before very long.” And then she smiled the nicest sweetest smile at sight of Martha’s face. It was like a burst of sunshine—anybody would have smiled. I hugged her—Martha, not the junior, because I am not well acquainted with her, you understand—but I wanted to hug everybody. Lila squeezed Martha so hard that she squeaked out loud.
“Oh,” sighed the little freshman almost to herself, “now I can send mother a birthday present.”
Wasn’t that dear of her to think of giving it away first thing! Of course some girls would have thought of having a spread to celebrate and invite in all the crowd; but Martha was only a freshman and probably had no college spirit as yet. Her remark seemed to remind Lila of something, for she quite jumped and exclaimed, “Why, you baby, I had forgotten all about that two dollars and seventy-five cents I borrowed of you last month. And here it is only the sixth of November, but my allowance is nearly gone. Why didn’t you poke up my memory?”
“And I owe her ninety cents,” said I.
The little freshman walked on with her hands clasped high up over her necktie. “Will they give me the prize soon?” she asked softly, “because the birthday is Thursday, and to-day is Monday, and it takes two days to get there.”
Lila looked at me and I looked at Lila. “We can scrape it together somehow,” she said. Then she touched Martha on the shoulder. “Do you want to buy it to-morrow?” she inquired, “because if you do, you shall. We’ll manage it somehow. We’ll pay you what we owe, and then you can buy a present even if the prize doesn’t arrive in time.”